_ _ _____ _ __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
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|_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ o http://www.ntk.net/ >> HARD NEWS <<
under purview
Well, it's old news that RMS, Linus, and Ken Sakamura (of
Alpha Centauri, we presume, like those Star Trek
lists-of-three always end) won 100 million yen each, as
co-winners of the 2001 Takeda Award for
Techno-Entrepreneurial Achievement for Social/Economic
Well-Being. Understandably, everyone's very pleased :
"Richard Stallman will have a Happy Thanksgiving this year",
chimes in USERLAND's Dave Winer, delighted as ever at
someone else's good fortune. But, Winer argues, it's all
very well these charitable foundations giving out cash to
their own kind, but when will they start forking over to the
people who really deserve financial support - profit-making
companies? Well, not profit-making, maybe, but - yeah, like
the man says, how about Sourceforge? They sure could do with
some free cash, if only to reward those selfless
shareholders. And allow us to ask the question Winer leaves
unspoken but ever present: where, exactly, is *Dave's*
money? As he says, RMS hasn't really pushed the envelope,
has he? That whole free software thing, some sort of
self-contained extensible editing and development
environment, an airy-fairy C compiler technology, all
envisaged, written and given away for free. Whereas Dave has
designed an entire scripting language, for which he asks
just a small stipend to purchase. Also, he updates his
Website every day. And XML-RPC. He made that up. That's got
to count for something, hasn't it? SO WHERE, PEOPLE OF THE
WEB, IS DAVE'S FREE MONEY? Thanks for listening.
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2001/11/21
- thanks
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N59/59stallman.59n.html
- really, thanks
http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohgpl.jpg
- no, merci!
Last days before the Anti-Terrorism, Crime, Security, and
Bad, Bad People Bill: in particular, this Monday is the
Commons debate on the retention of communications data
sections. To recap: currently, ISPs aren't allowed to store
data for longer than it's useful in billing. The new law
will allow them to do so, for the specific purpose of
allowing the authorities to access it in any criminal
investigation. As is always the case, the last few days have
exposed a clutch of last minute gotchas in the proposed law.
The Tories are proposing an amendment that will attempt to
ensure that no data will be "disclosed to any private
individual or organisation without responsibilities for
national security." A nice idea, which means that not even
the owner of the traffic data will be able to see what's
held on them. And did we say ISPs will be keeping this data?
Oh, sorry, we mean "a person who provides a postal service
or a telecommunications service". By the legal definition of
telecommunications service, you'll be pleased to know that
your P2P file-sharing client falls into that category. Hope
you're keeping those logs nice and neat for the kindly
policeman.
http://cryptome.org/uk-atcs.htm
- thanks to london2600 for the headsup
It's like watching the entire history of representational art
repeating itself in microcosm; this week in the BBC NEWS
ONLINE graphics department, a breakaway group renounced the
psychedelic extravagances of "TV Set Displaying The Demon
Headmaster's Photoshop Plug-in Struggles To Leap Over A Bit-
Spitting Mission-Impossible-Type-Fuse - None Of Which Explains
The Blue Chef's Hat On The Left" (as nominated by reader Tom
Anderson): http://makeashorterlink.com/?B2B721E2 . Instead,
this new faction advocate a Dogme-style literalism in their
work, epitomised by their illustration of the story "Barclays
in money laundering probe" with the crude still-life "Laundry
Basket, Next To Some Money" (nominated by Gordon Joly):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1665000/1665474.stm .
The trend then peaked in Tuesday's starkly uncompromising
"Entrepreneur, With Head Pointing Down", for the caption
"Entrepreneurs are keeping their heads down" (Mike Butcher):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1665000/1665312.stm .
Keep those submissions coming and maybe we'll hand out an
"Online Turner Prize" or something - we've had a few from
other sites as well, but we're proud to say that, for the
moment at least, BBC Online continues to lead the world.
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
sure electro jazz sounds terrible, but is it technically a
"war crime"?: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohcrime.gif ...
"blah blah blah terrorists to blame - you get the idea":
http://www.pm.gov.uk/evidence.htm ... at least 4 vacancies:
http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohcnnjob.jpg ... "see the
difference when infrastructure starts with you?", asks HP ad:
http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohhp.gif ... JONATHAN KING
"more interested in finding, helping and breaking talent"
reassures: http://www.kingofhits.com/pages/money.html ... AMMO
CITY joins forces with own Flash-crazed web designers in
clearly-not-doomed opportunity to spam 100,000 "receptive
opinion formers": http://b2b.ammocity.com/ ... do come back on
10th January 2000: http://www.webtech2000.co.uk/ ... POWs
looking well: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohprison.jpg ...
"Compare our prices with the High Street - damn!", advise
EMPIREDIRECT: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohprice.jpg ...
curse of the inadvertently inserted millions strikes again:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/011120/80/cg355.html ($530 = "374.6
million pounds")... http://www.september11th.co.uk/ points to
... http://www.jesusfuckingchrist.com/ points to... ANANOVA -
see me after class: http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/23/dohano.gif ...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
It's surely IT journalism's "Wedding Of The Year": Ben
Hammersley and Anna Soderblom, both of whose contributions to
the "Times Interface" parish have been so often celebrated in
these pages, are to marry this weekend in a private ceremony.
It is hoped that, in keeping with "Interface" tradition, at
least some of the vows and speeches will consist of verbatim
recitals of press releases that turned up in the post that
morning. And if you weren't invited either, why not take the
opportunity to start work on your cheap and shoddy costume for
this year's inaugural SANTACON UK (Sat 2001-12-15, London,
one-size-fits-all suits available from Woolworths from
UKP9.99)? The aim is to reclaim the pagan Christmas spirit by
getting 100 people dressed as "Saint/Old Nick" to drunkenly
stagger around the streets and shopping centres, on the
understanding that any attempt to arrest them on public order
offences might be massively traumatic for any kids who are
watching. Ho ho ho, as they say.
http://www.santarchy.com/
- mail santacon@hotmail.com for details of UK event
http://uk.tombola.com/qxl/
- a deliberate double-entendre on "sacks" here, surely?
http://www.rhmfoodservice.co.uk/pages/calendar/calendar.htm
- National Cranberry Week: Brit version of Thanksgiving
http://www.benhammersley.com/
- relax girls, Dr Keyboard's married
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering
"I'm so sorry," wailed Phil Zimmermann, evil mastermind
behind PGP and person most likely to destroy the world with
his foolish FOOLISH meddling. Well, actually he didn't, but
if the Washington Post can make out he was deeply sorry
about directly causing Sept. 11th (both the event and the 24
hour period itself, we hear), we can play up his recent
softening of the whole "you must meet someone face-to-face
to sign their key" mantra. These days he, and other
cryptorights demigods, consider that an automatic signing
bot (who'll sign your key if it knows you live at an e-mail
address) might be one of the softening tweaks crypto needs
to get it into the hands of everyone. Another bit is
software like HUSHMAIL PROFESSIONAL for Outlook 2000, which
wraps the whole shebang in an easy to use interface. At the
moment Hushmail's playing catchup with the old PGP Windows
codebase - and we're still a little cagey about their
infrastructure's private key offsite storage angle - but
it's a start. Or are we just compromising ourselves in the
face of the New World Order? Ah, who cares. As long as we
get our distributed porn, warez and tunez stashes encoded,
we're happy.
http://www.hush.com/solutions/hushmail_professional/
- we haven't got Outlook2000, but you may have. Send us a proper review!
http://www.hush.com/images/diagrams/hushmail-pro-lg.gif
- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
http://www.templetons.com/brad/crypt.html
- zero ui is *good* ui
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5605
- I've created a monnnnstah!
http://www.philzimmermann.com/news-Response_WashPost.shtml
- a monster for good!
>> MEMEPOOL <<
the warm bit behind the http://www.gagpipe.com/ retro ringtones: http://arcadetones.emuunlim.com/ ... must be
prevented from teaming up with http://aj.hd.org/ - they'd be
unstoppable: http://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/ ... "Accidents"
are third most important news category for Russians nowadays:
http://english.pravda.ru/ ... so, do you support cookies?:
http://128.220.40.178/previous/Fall99/GSNet/Sprpt953.htm ...
Dr Manhattan survives again as Ozymandias flees the scene:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1664000/1664447.stm
... phew - who's just been to the SINGAPORE TOILET SUMMIT?:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_1663000/1663934.stm
... http://www.coolbeauty.co.jp/sh02026.htm subtly imitates:
http://www.yoni.com/loverf/vulvaintro.shtml ... while the -
apparently for real - http://www.foesreunited.co.uk/ imitates:
http://www.seethru.co.uk/zine/features/bullies_reunited/ ...
the return of the grassroots do-it-yourself TVGOHOME clones:
http://uncertain.org/%7Ekevan/cgi-bin/other.cgi ... pop parody
double-bill: http://www.waider.ie/music/lyrics/gdb.html ,
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=fat+l33t+spod ... BBC and
THE TIMES keeping fairly quiet over their Taliban nuclear
document goof: http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11935
... THE ECONOMIST apologises for any inconvenience caused:
http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=865704 ...
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> "Casablanca", "Alien", "Star Wars" and - of course - "The
Matrix" jockey for position in Graham Norton's 100 GREATEST
FILMS (9pm, Sat & Sun, C4)... ITV desperately counters with
STARS IN THEIR EYES CORONATION STREET SPECIAL (9.20pm, Sat,
ITV), apparently including Janice Battersby as Bjork... but
always nestling comfortably near the top of our "Top 100
Greatest Movies (Or Other Cultural Artefacts) Of All Time",
there's surprisingly entertaining Jagger/ Hopkins/ Estevez/
Russo body swap sci-fi FREEJACK (9pm, Sun, C5): "Ah, Mr
McCandless - good to have you back"... C4's much-hyped RICHARD
AND JUDY show is enticingly scheduled in the hotly contested
Mon-Fri 5pm slot... DESPERATE MEASURES (11.05pm, Mon, C4) is
basically "Die Hard - But In A Hospital"... and never mind
Kurt Russell's famous 60-word script, the props budget only
seems to have only stretched to two military vehicles in Paul
"Event Horizon" Anderson's disappointing SOLDIER (9pm, Tue,
C5)... mock nationalist Al "The Pub Landlord" Murray adds an
unusually self-referential twist to this year's THE ROYAL
VARIETY PERFORMANCE (8pm, Wed, ITV)... in Thu's undercover
double-bill, KENYON CONFRONTS (8pm, Thu, BBC1) imitates
http://www.fallingcity.com/canary/bio_wertz_thrombosis.htm by
showing how to fake your own death , while SLEEPERS (9pm, Thu,
C4) pioneeringly infiltrates two opposing factions at the same
time - this week: racists and Asian shop-owners... and
finally, we don't know how much those hard-hitting posh women
know about WHAT NOT TO WEAR (8.30pm, Thu, BBC2), but let's
hope it's more than they know about running successful dot-
coms: http://www.sun.co.uk/dotcomheroes/ready.html ...
FILM>> is it just us, or does Robert Redford increasingly
resemble a craggy Kirk Douglas impersonator in Tony Scott's
flashy "Enemy Of The State" espionage followup SPY GAME
(http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/spy_game.html : Brad Pitt
[...] uses strong profanity, ends up romantically involved
with [Catherine McCormack], and finds himself set for
execution in a Chinese prison)... otherwise it's Anna
"Brookside" Friel, Michelle "Dawson's Creek" Williams, Kyle
"Dune Guy" MacLachlan and Trudie "Sting's Wife" Styler -
together at last! - in intense retro coming-of-ager ME WITHOUT
YOU (http://www.cndb.com/ : [Friel] takes a bath with her best
friend [Williams] and both girls' breasts are visible;
[Williams has] a great pair and she's a fantastic young
actress [though] it's not as much as she showed in "If These
Walls Could Talk 2")... David "motherfuckin'" Mamet assembles
the usual actor-fest for "one last job" crime caper HEIST
(http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/heist.html : Since the
characters make their thievery look cool and smart, some kids
could be enticed to try the same)... chipmunk lookalike Mariah
Carey sings, acts a little in autobiographical vanity project
GLITTER (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/glitter.htm :
vulgar male dress; provocative self touching - repeatedly;
cohabitation and intercourse - genitals unseen)... or, for all
of you who didn't feel the original was quite gruelling
enough, there's APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX - "Redux" being a Latin
word meaning "with added nudity", from the looks of things
(http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Apocalypse+Now : Colleen
[Camp] shows her mammoth breasts during a scene that has been
added to the 3 1/2 hr Director's Cut; Aurore [Clement] takes
off her robe to show her very, very nice breasts, and it might
be possible to catch a glimpse of bush; [Martin Sheen is] nude
and sobbing in his room. As he falls to the floor against his
bed you can quickly see his penis and balls)...
DRESS DOWN FRIDAY>> in the end, so many people sent in
variations on the "fsck" theme that we had to go back to
Moose's definitive http://www.cafepress.com/moose2000/ idea,
and will now be giving a pound to someone like the Free Dmitry
/ Eurorights campaign for each "FSCK /LINUX" shirt sold. Got a
problem with that? Then don't buy one and go and print your
own. It's currently being sold through our intriguing Register
distribution deal: http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/ , raising the
questions: Is it a pro- or anti-Linux shirt? Will it placate -
or further enrage - THE INQUIRER's famously Linux-hating
reporter Andrew Thomas? And shouldn't it technically be "FSCK
/GNU-LINUX"? There are some things that only you can decide...
also now on Geekstyle: a "Born To Run" Spectrum one that we
did to see how it looked; a few light-grey "Adminspotting"
shirts to whet your appetite for the proper black ones due to
arrive "any day now"; and, for the benefit of any atypically
large, small, female or non-EU/USA-inhabiting readers, a
"Special Limited Editions" boutique which will sell XXL or S
or Skinny-Fit sizes (where available) to anyone who survives
the mildly controversial PayPal signup procedure... recent
entries continue to include graphics that we don't have the
rights for: http://www.bloommedia.co.uk/richard/ntk/ntk.gif
(thank you, RICO MONKEON); BEN MARANEY's bid to reclaim the
much-abused "smiley" symbol: http://www.maraney.com/tshirt.htm
and, more promisingly, PHILIP ROWLANDS' apparently European
Article Numbering-compliant selection of actual readable
barcodes: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~phr/barcode.html ... but
most of this month's action has been in text-only slogans,
with WILL PHIPPS getting right to the point with his succinct,
yet enigmatic, "Fuck The Internet". "Real Men Use CP/M",
agreed MARKUS DIERSBOCK, while an ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTOR posted
four explicitly confrontational gems in rapid succession,
including "Undercover Yuppie", "Hacked by Chinese", "Stand
Back Or I'll Menstruate" and - our favourite, so far - "Davros
Was Right". And acquitted former royal family Prestel hacker
ROBERT SCHIFREEN http://www.dunhackin.co.uk/ chipped in with
his poetic "Only the crumbliest, flakiest software - feels
like software never tested before"... as ever, get in touch if
you think you can do better - or if you're planning on winning
a free t-shirt by wearing one during a Channel 4 news item on
wireless war-driving: http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/ -
well spotted, MARTIN LING. Though you don't have to go as far
as reader "JEZ" who, inquiring after those Toxico "Police
State: Do Not Cross" shirts we used to do (still available via
Cybercandy), enthused: "It'll look good under my police
uniform!". And they say coppers have no sense of irony...
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have
nothing better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
Registered at the Post Office as
"not gay porn"
http://forum.fuckedcompany.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/184228.html
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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